As a college English teacher, I have never taught grades 4-8, the target group for this book. I discovered it by accident, and yet, even before finishing chapter three, I had decided to incorporate "Helping Students Write the Best Research Reports EVER!" as a supplementary text in all of my college research, speech, and writing classes.

Oh! how I wish every student I've ever taught could have had the benefit of learning research writing from Lois Laase and Joan
Clemmons. Most young people come to college without a clue to the excitement of discovery inherent in any research project.

The best way to learn anything is to teach it. Teaching college students how to teach research to children while learning research techniques from college textbooks is a wonderful way to introduce them to the wonderment and fascination of information-gathering.

So if you are a teacher of writing or speech at any level from grade school through college, you will find this book an astonishing treasure trove of ideas and specific lesson plans to help students begin a journey that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

I can hardly wait for my fall writing, research, & speech classes to begin so that I can incorporate this book into my curriculum.

By the way, if you are a home-schooling parent, this book will help you spark enthusiasm for learning in ways you've never even thought of. It is a teaching and learning treasure.

I've discussed these stories in chronological order rather than order of appearance. The stories are an unabridged narration by Joan Hickson, who gave the best interpretation of Miss Marple I've ever seen. The only quibble I have with the recordings is that the publisher didn't group the stories into separate recordings based on content (e.g. a story from _The Tuesday Club Murders_ is on this recording). I advise you to scoop up the set of recordings (see my Listmania list), unless you can find some omnibus audio edition of Hickson's narration that includes the lot.

"The Thumbmark of St. Peter" - Miss Marple's contribution to the Tuesday Night Club (see Hickson's narration of _The Tuesday Club Murders_ for the earlier stories), at which each member was required to tell the story of a real life mystery, to which he or she knew the answer, but none of the others did. One of her many nieces - Mabel, this time - had made an unwise marriage, but after her husband's death, wrote her aunt in near hysteria. Not grief; stress, because rumours were spreading that she had poisoned her husband.

"The Herb of Death" - Mrs. Bantry's story, the 5th of 6 stories, one told by each member of a dinner party at the Bantrys. (Hickson's recording of the 1st 4 form _The Blue Geranium and Other Stories_.) Mrs. Bantry didn't want to tell a story, saying that she isn't any good at it. So she begins by telling of the bare facts of a death at Sir Ambrose Bercy's - a lot of foxglove got picked with the sage, everyone got food poisoning (including the Bantrys), and Sir Ambrose's ward Sylvia actually died of it. "There isn't anymore. That's all." Sir Henry in particular takes this as a challenge, since the listeners then have to work at ferreting out the details with clever questions.

"The Affair at the Bungalow" - Jane Helier's story, the last of the 6. Miss Helier, like a few other beautiful blond actresses in Christie's works, is, to put it kindly, not regarded as an intellectual. So when she comes up with a tale of robbery that 'happened to a friend of hers', all the other guests figure they know what's coming next.

"Death by Drowning" - A girl in St. Mary Mead has just been found drowned - Rose, the daughter of a man who runs the local pub. Having just learned that she was pregnant (having seduced a promising young architect in hopes of a shotgun wedding), quite a few people have reason to want her dead: the architect (engaged to a girl back in London), and her devoted admirer Joe Ellis, to name two. Miss Marple fears that the police may get the wrong person, so she reveals her own suspicions privately to Sir Henry (still a guest at the Bantrys'), and he follows up on them.

Joan Connor, who's from Vermont, depends on her native territory for her brilliant new collection, "Here on Old Route 7." The stories emit atmosphere and a feeling of place, while creating characters that would seem just as home Down South as in the mountains of Vermont. The reader doesn't need to have been around these settings to get the impression that Connor knows well about what she writes. The nine stories range in tone from humor to dark explorations of the human heart. Connor's wit can elicit guffaws from a reader eagerly turning pages. By the end, the reader feels sadness that the book isn't longer.

Patients in the hospital at Sells, Arizona, are away from what they're used to drink and eat. So they're served traditional foods. Respecting the traditional link to nature and people keeps up physical and spiritual strength. In contrast, in the 19th century, Zuni boys and girls were sent to Carlyle, Pennsylvania. They didn't feel part of a community or nature. They'd felt both in the southwest. They never made it back home. They died from loneliness.

In the southwest, life has always been about getting along with nature and people. One traditional way that southwestern cultures do this is through dance. Music sounds within the dancer. That energy joins the dancer to all creation. So the dancer becomes linked with human energy, such as ancestors and future generations.

The dancer also links to natural energy, such as rain clouds. This is why the Hopi rain dance brings rain. In fact, the Hopi say that their corn, grown unirrigated, and their way of life, in harmony with nature and people, will save the world. The Apache also got through war, reservation poverty, depression and censorship by drawing energy from community, nature, and prayers.

It should be no surprise, then, that a southwestern work of art has a link and use too. Pottery stands for the sacred earth bowl. Traditional designs keep the tie strong between past, present and future generations.

HERE, NOW, & ALWAYS comes out of an exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Along with artworks, such as beautifully useful basketry, pottery and weavings, there are also audios, videos and writings of southwesterners on ancestors, community, cycles of nature and people, and survival.

Southwesterners believe they didn't come from somewhere else. They've always been here first, right from the start, along the Colorado, Gila, Rio Grande, Salt and San Juan rivers. They'll also be the last. For example, the Hopi believe that the life of their people began at the Grand Canyon. That also will be their final spiritual home.

Bought the book at Haslam's in St. Pete in the very early 80s. The ideas here just keep popping up in later books/magazines with different justifications for inclusion. Moral: hey, use all the ideas in this source book - just don't publicly brand them "high-tech."

This is the sweetest book my son has ever read. It is totally geared toward children. My son loved recognizing the landmarks he has grown to love. A must read for all of Cleveland's children and anyone who ever thought about trying to explain relocation to their child.

If you like cats you can not find a better book for hooking on the subject than this one. It gives detailed pattern instructions for all kinds of cats. It is full of lovely photos, many in color. The front cover tells it all. It is a color picture of a beautiful gray persian cat. Instructions for this cat are contained inside including how to dye for the project. Enjoy!

At first this book seemed like a possible rerun of A Proper Place, with the arrival of Clodagh. But Joan Lingard knows not to follow that predictable oh-so-sweet path. The characters are all multi-dimensional and the story is once again fabulous.

The concept of who, what, why, when, where, and how is featured in this rollicking story told in the form of a rhythmic chant. Kids in a neighborhood find a key to a locked playground and have a great time. Parents soon join in the fun.

Brimner's book is pure fun and will have kids counting by ones and tens in no time at all. On our school district's list of recommended "100s" books, kids in my classroom cluster together like ants to count the little critters on each page. We've had so much fun with this title that I don't understand the Horn Book comments above, although it may be that they have never been a classroom teacher or simply lack a fundamental understanding of children.